Listen Com

Internet music search engine Listen.com said Wednesday that it will lay off 42 workers, or about 25% of its staff, as part of a restructuring against the backdrop of competition from song-swapping software firm Napster Inc. Privately held Listen.com, whose investors include five of the world's largest record labels, said the staff cuts reflected its strategy of focusing on the licensing of its online music directory. The company said it expects to reach profitability next year.

A struggling start-up is suing RealNetworks Inc. and Listen.com Inc. for patent infringement, claiming to hold fundamental patents over the technology for streaming digital media through the Internet. San Francisco-based Friskit Inc. filed the lawsuit Friday in federal court in Chicago, seeking an injunction against and an unspecified amount of damages from the two companies.

The assets of Scour Inc., the defunct entertainment "dot-com" operation once backed by former super-agent Michael Ovitz, were auctioned off Tuesday in Bankruptcy Court to a key rival, marking the effective end of the controversial Beverly Hills firm. CenterSpan Communications Corp., a software developer based in Hillsboro, Ore., won out against rival bidders Liquid Audio Inc. and Listen.com. CenterSpan's winning bid was $9 million, consisting of $5.5 million cash and the rest in stock.

A leading supplier of online music is cutting the price of individual songs by 20%, the latest gambit by the recording industry and its allies to lure the masses away from unauthorized sources of free tunes. The price cut by Listen.com Inc. comes as RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle -- which is in the process of buying Listen -- phases out the MusicNet service that it co-owns with three major record companies and replaces it with Listen's Rhapsody service.

Listen.com struck a key licensing deal with the National Music Publishers Assn., the latest in a series of agreements that are clearing the way for online subscription music services. San Francisco-based Listen.com is developing a service called Rhapsody that will let consumers hear and sample music on demand.

San Francisco-based Listen.com is expected to announce a licensing deal with Warner Music Group, enabling the company to provide four of the five major record companies' songs on demand online. Listen, which already had deals with EMI, BMG, Sony Music and 46 independent labels, offers subscribers genre-based radio and a personal online jukebox starting at $9.95 a month. Listen.com's Rhapsody is the only on-demand service with music from more than three major labels. * Jon Healy

One of the five largest record companies, BMG, is set to announce its first licensing deal with an on-demand online music service it doesn't own. The deal, which is expected to be announced today, lets San Francisco-based Listen.com add music from BMG artists to its Rhapsody jukebox service. Financial terms were not released. Listen.com is expected to announce a similar deal with EMI Group's EMI Recorded Music, which has licensed its catalog to numerous online services.

Online music site Listen.com Inc. offered more than $5 million in cash and stock to buy the assets of file-swapping company Scour Inc., the controversial Beverly Hills multimedia company backed by former Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz that filed for bankruptcy protection last month. San Francisco-based Listen.com revealed in court documents Wednesday that it submitted a proposal to the federal court overseeing the bankruptcy case. In addition to $5 million, the privately held Listen.

Alarmed by the sharp drop in CD sales and steady rise in Internet piracy, the major record companies finally are picking up the pace of their lumbering efforts to distribute songs online. In a milestone for the record industry, Listen.com today is expected to become the first online music service authorized to offer songs on demand from all five major record companies--something that a host of pirate services have been doing for years. Listen.

A leading supplier of online music is cutting the price of individual songs by 20%, the latest gambit by the recording industry and its allies to lure the masses away from unauthorized sources of free tunes. The price cut by Listen.com Inc. comes as RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle -- which is in the process of buying Listen -- phases out the MusicNet service that it co-owns with three major record companies and replaces it with Listen's Rhapsody service.

RealNetworks Inc., a founder of the struggling MusicNet online distribution service, announced Monday a $36-million deal to acquire a second online music company, Listen.com Inc. of San Francisco. Listen, which has raised and spent more than $100 million from investors to develop its Rhapsody music service, becomes the largest company in the fledgling industry to be swallowed up by a competitor.

Listen.com of San Francisco may have the songs, the technology and the distributors for a successful online music service, but it's still missing a key ingredient: the customers. While millions of consumers are downloading songs for free from unauthorized services, Listen and its label-sanctioned competitors have managed to attract only a fraction of that audience. To boost those numbers, Listen.

Gateway Inc., maker of personal computers, joined with online music service Listen.com Inc. on Tuesday to offer consumers subscriptions for downloading songs from the Internet. Gateway is shipping desktop PCs with software that enables them to subscribe to Listen.com for $9.95 a month. Customers can sample a selection of 250,000 songs and record selected tracks onto compact discs for 99 cents apiece.

Internet music distributor Listen.com of San Francisco said it reached deals with two major record companies that would let subscribers make permanent copies of some of the songs on Listen's online jukebox. The agreements with Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group and AOL Time Warner's Warner Music Group add an important new dimension to Listen's service: For an additional fee, subscribers will be able to listen to some major-label songs when they are not connected to the Internet.

Alarmed by the sharp drop in CD sales and steady rise in Internet piracy, the major record companies finally are picking up the pace of their lumbering efforts to distribute songs online. In a milestone for the record industry, Listen.com today is expected to become the first online music service authorized to offer songs on demand from all five major record companies--something that a host of pirate services have been doing for years. Listen.

San Francisco-based Listen.com is expected to announce a licensing deal with Warner Music Group, enabling the company to provide four of the five major record companies' songs on demand online. Listen, which already had deals with EMI, BMG, Sony Music and 46 independent labels, offers subscribers genre-based radio and a personal online jukebox starting at $9.95 a month. Listen.com's Rhapsody is the only on-demand service with music from more than three major labels. * Jon Healy

Online music distributor Listen.com Inc. announced Wednesday that it had received a cash infusion from RealNetworks Inc., whose technology will replace Microsoft Corp.'s software as the backbone for Listen's service. By investing an undisclosed amount in San Francisco-based Listen, Real gains a minority stake in the privately held company. Real also owns 40% of MusicNet, a competing online music distributor that Real co-founded with three major record companies.

Gateway Inc., maker of personal computers, joined with online music service Listen.com Inc. on Tuesday to offer consumers subscriptions for downloading songs from the Internet. Gateway is shipping desktop PCs with software that enables them to subscribe to Listen.com for $9.95 a month. Customers can sample a selection of 250,000 songs and record selected tracks onto compact discs for 99 cents apiece.

One of the five largest record companies, BMG, is set to announce its first licensing deal with an on-demand online music service it doesn't own. The deal, which is expected to be announced today, lets San Francisco-based Listen.com add music from BMG artists to its Rhapsody jukebox service. Financial terms were not released. Listen.com is expected to announce a similar deal with EMI Group's EMI Recorded Music, which has licensed its catalog to numerous online services.